loaf cake

It’s so satisfying when a little effort brings so many and so huge smiles :). When I had just ventured into the world of baking, I had to constantly refer to measurements, but now at least for a plain loaf cake, I have the recipe at the back of my mind. And now I keep experimenting with different kinds of additional flavors in it.

Sometime back when Sikander was leaving for Assam for a week, I decided to bake him a cake to take along. And I saw this bright orange orange in my fridge that I knew I have to add this to the cake, so what followed is a very subtly flavored Orange syrup cake. The recipe is inspired by Nigella’s Lemon syrup loaf cake! What I loved most was how the whole kitchen had the beautiful hint of orange in the air while the cake was baking!

(If you are using self-raising flour don’t use the baking powder and salt)

½ cup (175g) castor sugar

½ cup (125g) softened butter

4 tbsp milk

Zest of 1 orange

2 eggs

For the syrup:

Juice of 1 orange

1/3 cup castor sugar

Take the milk, butter, eggs out of refrigerator earlier so that they are at room temperature when you start.

Pre-heat oven to 180°C

Butter and line a 9X5 inch Loaf Tin well. I always have the lining a bit taller than the tin, it makes it easier to take the cake out. (I find loaf cake a comfortable shape for breakfast and snack cakes, but a regular 8 inch round tin will also work with the quantities.)

Using an electric mixer, mix together butter and sugar

Add eggs one at a time, beating them in well.

Add orange zest and mix well

Add flour, baking powder and salt. Fold it gently and thoroughly

Add the milk, mix well with the beater

Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and bake at 180°C for 45-50 minutes until the cake has risen from the center and a skewer comes out clean.

When there is just about 10 minutes left for the baking to get over; make the syrup. Take a small saucepan and heat (on low heat) the orange juice and sugar well until the sugar dissolves

Remove the cake from the oven, prick it all over with a skewer and then drizzle over the orange syrup.

Leave it to cool in the tin itself.

Once the cake is cooled, remove from the tin; cut into slices and Enjoy!

Last week while I was packing for a trip to my sister’s place, I just gave her a call to ask if she needs something from Baroda. I was thinking more on terms of the Gujarati dry snacks like khakra, khandvi, namkeens etc. But she said “Bake and bring a cake!” Last time when I had visited her, I had baked a basic chocolate cake the night before and it was half over between the time she picked me from the station and drove to home! 🙂 So this time she didn’t want to leave it at chance. What if I didn’t bring one this time! I wanted to try something new and as soon as I closed my eyes, marble cake came to mind. There was little time left for the shops to close so I was immediately on the net to find a marble cake recipe. At that time I was eating a nutella sandwich and don’t know why but my hands simply typed nutella marble cakes. I found this beautiful food blog whipped run by a 20 something old pretty pretty girl! And her recipe for Nutella Swirl Poundcake that spoke of her love for the spread! I just did slight changes to the recipe and made a Nutella swirl loaf cake or in general terms a marble cake for my sister! 🙂

Nutella Marble Cake

200 gms butter (I use the regular butter, which is slightly salted. If you use unsalted butter then add like ¼ tsp salt to the recipe)

100 gms Nutella Hazelnut spread

Preheat oven to 160C and line a loaf tin with butter paper (I save the wrappings of butter stick to use as cake tin linings!).

Combine eggs and vanilla in a small bowl and lightly beat.

Sieve together flour and baking powder (and salt if using) in a medium mixing bowl.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar, using an electric whisk, until fluffy.

Pour the egg and vanilla mixture into the egg mixture. First combine using a hand fork and then with the whisk at medium speed.

Slowly combine the flour mixture ½ a cup at a time. Whisk at a low speed and after the last addition mix for 30 seconds on medium speed.

Spread 1/3rd of the batter into the bottom of the pan. Smooth with the back of a spoon. Spread ½ the Nutella over the batter. Again spread 1/3rd of the batter and top with another layer of the remaining Nutella spread. Finally add the remaining batter. Smooth with the back of the spoon. Run a knife through the batter to create marbling effect. Do not over mix!

Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes till the cake has risen well and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool for 20 minutes.

Cut a slice (or two!) and indulge yourself before packing the rest :D. Store in an air-tight container. Stays in refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Indulge in a slice.. or two… before packing it for friends and family 🙂

I can eat this for breakfast, for tea-time snack, for dessert and for anytime munching! 🙂

If you still haven’t guessed, I am in love with loaf cakes (this being my 4th post on the same). Loaf cake is now my open playground for desserts. Once you know the basic cake, the sky is the limit for the kind of flavours that can be tried.

So this time when Ammi got dried cranberries, blueberring and blackberries from US; I couldn’t resist but make this dried fruit cake. I wanted to use these in my original Christmas fruit cake also but unfortunately, we don’t get these exotic ingredients here so that one went with dry fruits (pistachio, almonds, raisins etc).

Soak the dried fruits in boiling water overnight (cover with a clean tea-towel). Note: You can use coffee/ tea or even rum to soak the fruits. Since I had parents home I just used water.

Take the butter and eggs out of refrigerator earlier so that they are at room temperature when you start.

Pre-heat oven to 180°C

Butter and line a Loaf Tin well. Remember to have the lining a bit taller than the tin to make un-moulding easier.

Beat together butter and sugar

Add eggs one at a time, beating them in well.

Add flour, baking powder and salt. Fold it gently and thoroughly. (If you are using self-raising flour, don’t use baking powder and salt)

Strain the fruits and add to the batter

Spoon the batter into the prepared tin and bake at 180°C for 45 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 150°C and bake for another 15 minutes. So after 45 minutes the cake wasn’t right there but it didn’t need too much so I decided to reduce the heat and cook for a slightly longer time. I remember reading this in some other fruit cake recipe during Christmas but can’t exactly remember where :(.

Remove from oven; leave to cool in the tin itself.

Once the cake is cooled, remove from the tin; cut into slices and Enjoy!

If you liked this, try my other flavours with the simple loaf cake:

Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake – everytime a winner! I have already gifted this cake thrice to friends and colleagues!

I’ve recently fallen in love with the loaf cake. Funny isn’t it to fall in love with the shape rather than the flavour :). But I think there is something about Loaf cakes that sets them apart. It has that simple elegance that no other cake has… It needs to icing, no trimmings. Others are out there to lure the world with their charms but a loaf cake knows he doesn’t need these superficial decorations!

“This is baking at its simplest and most elegant. There is no folderol or fancy footwork: You just feel humble and worthy and brimming with good things”

…brimming with good things is exactly what I felt after making Nigella’s Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake – called so for the 4 different ways in which chocolate is used in the recipe – cocoa; chocolate chips; chocolate syrup and chocolate shavings! And that is why I christen it “Death by Chocolate”. Those living in Bangalore must be familiar with the famous ‘Death by Chocolate’ Sunday of Corner House! I just borrowed that name :).

Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake

Preparation Time: 20 mins | Baking Time: 45 mins | Makes 10-12 slices

For the cake

1 2/3 cup Plain flour (maida)

½ tsp baking soda

½ cup cocoa powder

1 cup caster sugar

175 grams unsalted butter soft

2 medium Eggs

1 tbsp vanilla essence

1/3 cup yoghurt

½ cup boiling water

Chocolate chip shavings for sprinkling on top (as much or as little as you want)

For the syrup

1 tsp cocoa powder

½ cup water

½ cup caster sugar

I loved the way Nigella has explained the process and particularly her choice of words like satiny brown batter. While I have tried to use my tone I think I have more or less reproduced her’s here :).

Take yoghurt, eggs and butter out of the fridge earlier so that they are at room temperature when you start.

Preheat the oven to 180°C, Grease and line a loaf tin. (Nigella’s recipe mentions 170°C but my oven moves up in steps of 20 so I either had the option of 160 or 180. I chose 180 and adjusted my baking time accordingly)

Mix the flour, baking soda, cocoa, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla and yoghurt in a processor. Blitz it till it becomes a smooth satiny brown batter. Now mix again while adding boiling water down the funnel. Switch it off, remove the lid and the blade and stir in chocolate chips.

Scrape and pour this beautiful batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for about 45 minutes. When ready, the loaf will be risen and split down the middle and a fine skewer, will pretty well come out clean. But this is a damp cake so bit of stickiness on the skewer is good.

About 10 minutes before the cake is due; put the syrup ingredients – cocoa, sugar and water in a small saucepan and boil for about 10 minutes till you get a thick and dark syrup.

Take the cake out of the oven and sit it on a cooling rack and, still in its tin, pierce it here and there with a skewer. Then pour the syrup as evenly as possible. Let the syrup run to the sides and also get absorbed in the middle.

After the cake is completely cooled, take it out of the tin and onto the serving platter. Sprinkle the chocolate shavings loosely on the top. Some of the chocolate will stick to the surface while some will just fall down on the platter making a beautiful spectacle.

Enjoy the chocolate cake as is; or with some vanilla ice-cream or with some custard. Enjoy during dessert, during tea-time or to satisfy a sweet craving in the middle of the night :).

If you love chocolate, you might want to try these easy breezy under 30 minute desserts:

Sinful Pleasures! A 20 min dessert which is sure to melt your heart!

Chocolate Pistachio fudge! A perfect for gifting if you want to go home-made & also for nibbling whenever you cross the fridge 🙂

This cake tested my patience! Not it terms of baking it but in terms of waiting to eat it :). I’ve been thinking of baking this one since the last weekend but when I finally went in the kitchen, I realized I had no lemon! On Tuesday, I was alone at home, watching Masterchef Australia and suddenly I wanted to bake. I so wanted to smell that aroma of fresh cake. So I opened my Nigella Lawson’s ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’ page 13 ‘Lemon Syrup loaf cake’. Now the recipe called for self-raising flour. Last time when I had made a cake using self-raising flour it didn’t raise at all! From then I had decided to stick to all-purpose flour and baking powder for any cake. I ‘google-d’ for the recipe and went to first link that came up Eat Little Bird! Even before I could read the recipe, I just loved the look and feel of the blog. To top it up her pictures and the style of presenting a recipe in pictures is amazing!

So I followed Thanh’s measurements and voila! The beautiful cake was ready in no time :). But where it tested my patience was that I wanted to eat it with Sikander and so I had to wait a whole night while the cake was sitting right there in my fridge and I was waiting for him to return the next day.

We don’t get lemon here, so I used lime and hence the different name :P. Limes have a stronger flavor than lemon so you might want to adjust quantity. Also I used buttermilk instead of milk so that the cake is extra moist.

Lime Syrup Loaf Cake

For the Cake

½ cup softened butter (the recipe calls for unsalted butter; but I always use Amul which is slightly salted.)

½ cup castor sugar

2 eggs

Zest of 2 limes

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

4 tbsp buttermilk

For the syrup

Juice of 1 lime

½ cup icing sugar

Butter and line the loaf pan well.

One very handy tip by Nigella here: Make sure that the lining comes an inch or so up from the sides of the pan for easier unmolding later.

Preheat oven to 180°C

Cream together butter and castor sugar together until fluffy

Add the lime zest and the eggs, beating them in well

Add the flour, baking powder and then mix in the buttermilk

Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes, until the cake has risen in the middle and is lightly golden in colour.

While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup. Put the lime juice and icing sugar in a small saucepan and heat gently so that the sugar dissolves.

As soon as the cake is out of the oven, puncture the top of the loaf all over with a skewer. Pour the syrup evenly all over the cake.

Leave the cake to cool completely and let the syrup do it’s magic.

Another tip here: If you try to take the cake out of the pan before it has cooled down, the cake might crumble as it will be sodden with syrup.